Chiang Mai Day 1 - "What it is!"

This post will probably be the first of three about our weekend in Chiang Mai... what can I say, either I'm really bad at writing concisely (probably true) or we (think we) have a lot of exciting stuff to share.  Maybe some of both.

Buddhist sign

On Saturday we wandered around Chiang Mai during the day, checking out some of the many wats (temples) and getting a feel for the town. Despite being the second largest city in Thailand, Chiang Mai actually feels very small because it is very sprawling, so no one area feels too dense. We were staying primarily in the old city, which is a small square in the heart of the city (probably ~2 square miles) which was built hundreds of years ago and has a moat and a wall around it. Two friends from Kellogg - Nick and Gabby - were there with us for the weekend, which was a blast.

Near one of the wats was a Buddhist school, and all of the trees had these little signs hanging in them with different sayings on them. I thought they were pretty cool.

Add the market, admiring the lemongrass and Thai basil

The highlight of the day, however, was thai cooking school!! We got picked up around 4pm and were driven to the market where local people and restaurants buy a lot of their food and ingredients. We were given a lesson on the 4 basic ingredients that give almost all thai dishes their flavor (kafir lime leaves, lemongrass, ginger, and tumeric). This lesson came in the form of a game, where our Thai instructor would pick up a leaf/root/veggie and yell out "WHAT IT IS!" (I think she thought she was saying "What is it?") and we would all answer with ridiculously inaccurate guesses.

We had a few minutes to wander around the market... checking out many other "delicacies"...

Fried chicken heads. Yep, you can even see the little beaks. 

Giant rolls of sausage, served with deep fried pork fat.
Matt  couldn't resist, and bought some for the ride back.

 Then, we were taken to the cooking school where we each got to select one dish from each of 4 different categories: a curry, a stir-fry, a noodle dish, and a soup. Then we went on a cooking spree! So awesome and fun and delicious. We were completely stuffed by the end, and quite proud of ourselves. They gave us recipe books to take home... now if only we can retain some of this skill and make a Thai feast for everyone when we get back to Evanston...

Second course - panang curry
and stir-fried sweet-and-sour veggies

Group shot, soup time (Jen, Nick, Gabby, and us)

Aren't these aprons awesome?
I bought one to take home... it cost a whopping $3.